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Louise de la Ram^e 


NEW YORK 

Maynard, Merrill <k Go. 

29 , 81 , & 83 East 19 Th St. 



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MAYNAKD’^ ENGLISli 'dtASSIQ 


BY 

LOUISE DE LA RAM£E 

(‘* ouida”) 


WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 



KEW YORK 

MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO. 


New Series, No. 31. February 5, 1898. Published Semi-weekly. Subscrip- 
tion Price $10. Entered at Post Office, New York, as Second-class Matter, 



8561 

A Complete Course in the Study of English. 


Spelling, Language, Grammar, Composition, Literature. 


Reed’s Word Lessons— A Complete Speller. 

Reed’s Introductory Language Work. 

Reed & Kellogg’s Graded Lessons in English, 

Reed & Kellogg’s Higher Lessons in English. 

Reed & Kellogg’s One-Book Course in English* 

Kellogg & Reed’s Word Building. 

Kellogg & Reed’s The English Language* 

Kellogg’s Text-Book on Rhetoric. 

Kellogg’s Illustrations of Style. 

Kellogg’s Text-Book on English Literature* 


In the pfeparation of this series the authors have had one object 
clearly in view — to so develop the study of the English language aS 
to present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to 
the study of English Literature, The troublesome contradictions 
which arise in using books arranged by different authors on these 
subjects, and which require much time for explanation in the school- 
room, will be avoided by the use of the above “ Complete Course.” 

Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. 

Maynard, Merrill, & Co., Publishers, 

29, 31, and 33 East Nineteenth St., New York. 


Copyright, 1898, by Maynard, Merrill, & Co. 


INTRODUCTION 


OuiDA is the pseudonym of Louise de la Ramee, a widely 
read novelist of French-English extraction. She was born 
in England at Bury St. Edmunds, in 1840. When quite 
young she began to write for periodicals, using the nom-de- 
plume Ouida, her own childish mispronunciation of her 
name, Louisa. About 1861 her first novel, “ Granville de 
Vigne ” appeared first as a serial in Colburn's New MontJily, 
and later in book form under the title “ Held in Bondage.” 
More than a score of novels have since come from her pen. 

Little is definitely known about Ouida’s life. It is said in 
explanation of the abstruse learning and absurd ignorance 
displayed in her novels, that her education was desultory and 
erratic, being conducted by her father, a man of ability who 
had wasted his talents. For more than twenty years she has 
lived in a beautiful villa just out of Florence. She is a 
cynical, morbid woman, an intense hater of her own sex. 

To Ouida’s novels are well applied Ruskin’s words about 
Dore’s paintings — “Bad with an awful power.” She 
has the natural gift of style, great descriptive talent, 
and, despite extravagances, skill in delineating character ; 
but her picturesque power and her gorgeous rhetoric 
are often the handmaids of morbid sentiment and loose 
morality. She is a favorite with readers of sensational 
novels, but her pure and exquisite child-romances and short 
stories constitute her chief, if not only, claim to the notice of 
lovers of good literature. A Westminster Rerieic critique 
says ; “A wise maxim nobly expressed has been left us by 
Bacon, — ‘Non imperatur Naturae nisi parendo.’ The same 
may be said of Art. Toil and long suffering, keen self- 
examination and repression, intense study of the best models, 
and the experience that comes of them, all must be gone 
through before the goddess will reveal those mysteries to her 
votaries which will enable them to comprehend what Art is 
and is capable of, and what are its requirements. They 
cannot then sin against its rules — such would be impossible, 
for they are ingrained in their very natures. Now Ouida has 
artistic instincts undoubtedly, but she chafes at the severity 


4 


INTRODUCTION 


of the inexorable decree. She is impatient of the curb, and 
desires to command Nature as well as Art without obeying 
them. Had her vocation been to handle the brush, she would 
have been primarily a colorist. There are a good many points 
in which her works remind us of Rubens’ paintings.” 

FAMOUS DOGS OF FICTION 

Patrasche is one among the many famous dogs of fiction 
whose devotion has soothed the sad or brightened the glad hours 
of their masters. It may be interesting to note some of these. 

First there is Ulysses’ Argus, who, having waited weary 
years for his master’s return, recognized Ulysses, whom his 
own family did not know, and died of joy at his coming. 
Chaucer’s Prioress had dainty pets “ smale hounds that she 
fedde with rested flesh or milk or w^astel bread.” Nor must 
we forget the famous Spartan hounds of Theseus in Shaks- 
pere’s Midsummer- Kight' s Bream, and Tray, Blanche, and 
Sweetheart in King Lear, who added another drop of bitter- 
ness to the King’s brimming cup of sorrow by barking at their 
forgotten old master. Burns immortalized Twa Bogs — Luath, 
the poor shepherd’s collie, and Caesar, the rich man’s pet. 

Across the pages of Sir Walter Scott, dear dog-lover that he 
was; paSNCS along procession of canines “ of high and low 
degree.” Lufra, “the fleetest hound in all the north,” pulling 
down the king’s stag ; Fangs comforting the outcast swine- 
herd, Gurth ; the dog with a Pantheon kind of name, which 
devoured Mr. Oldbuck’s buttered toast ; Wasp, attending his 
master, Bertram ; Elphin, recognizing a long-absent master’s 
voice; James FitzJames’ “black hounds of pure Saint 
Hubert’s breed”; Dandie Dinmont’s terriers, Old Pepper 
and Old Mustard, Young Pepper and Young IMustard, and all 
their tribe : Scott brings all these, and more, vividly before us. 
But the most interesting of all his dogs is Bevis, of whom Scott’s 
Maida was the original— Bevis the grand, tawny, lion-coated 
W'olf-hound of noble old Sir Henry Lee. 

We might extend indefinitely this list, which yet must not 
close without mention of Rab, the human-hearted mastiff hero 
of Dr. Brown’s pathetic story, and of Wolf, the companion in 
hen-pecked misery of Rip Van Winkle, 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 

A Story of Kofl 
I 

I^ELLO and Patrasche were left all alone in the 
world. 

They were friends in a friendship closer than 5 
brotherhood. 

Nello was a little Ardennois — Patrasche was a 
big Fleming. They were both of the same age by 
length of years, yet one was still young, and the 
other was already old. They had dwelt together 10 
almost all their days : both were orphaned and desti- 
tute, and owed their lives to the same hand. It 
had been the beginning of the tie between them, 
their first bond of sympathy; and it had strength- 
ened day by day, and had grown with their growth, 15 
firm and indissoluble, until they loved one another 
very greatly. 

Their home was a little hut on the edge of a 

2. Noel. Christmas. 

7 . Ardennois. An inhabitant of Ardennes, a frontier department of 
France. 

8. Fleming. An inhabitant of Flanders. 


6 


A DOG OP FLANDERS 


little village — a Flemisli village a league from Ant 
werp, set amidst flat breadths of pasture and corn- 
lands, with long lines of poplars and of alders bend- 
ing in the breeze on the edge of the great canal 
5 which ran through it. 

~ It had about a score of houses and homesteads, 
with shutters of bright green or sky-blue, and roofs 
rose-red or black and white, and walls whitewashed 
until they shone in the sun like snow. In the cen- 
10 ter of the village stood a windmill, placed on a 
little moss-grown slope: it was a landmark to all 
the level country round. 

It had once been painted scarlet, sails and all, 
but that had been in its infancy, half a century or 
15 more earlier, when it had ground wheat for the 
soldiers of hTapoleon; and it was now a ruddy 
brown, tanned by wind and weather. It went 
queerly by fits and starts, as though rheumatic and 
stiff in the joints from age, but it served the whole 
20 neighborhood, which would have thought it almost 
as impious to carry grain elsewhere as to attend 
any other religious service than the Mass that was 
performed at the altar of the little old gray church, 

1. League. The length of the league varies greatly in different countries. 
The Dutch league is equivalent to about five English statute miles, but 
the distance here designated is probably about three miles. 

16. Soldiers of Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), the great 
general and emperor of the French, declared war against Belgium and 
Great Britain in 1793, and the next year his victorious armies overran 
Belgium. It was under French i*ule until Napoleon’s fall, when the royal 
family of Orange was recalled. 


A DOG OF FLANDEllS 7 

witli its conical steeple, which stood opposite to it, 
and whose single hell rang morning, noon, and 
night with that strange, subdued, hollow sadness 
which every bell that hangs in the Low Countries 
seems to gain as an integral part of its melody. 

Within sound of the little melancholy clock 
almost from their birth upward, they had dwelt to- 
gether, E^ello and Patrasche, in the little hut on the 
edge of the village, with the cathedral spire of Ant- 
werp rising in the northeast^ beyond the great green 
plain of seeding grass and spreading corn that 
stretched away from them like a tideless, change- 
less sea. 

It was the hut of a very old man, of a very poor 
man — of old Jehan Daas, who in his time had been 
a soldier, and who remembered the wars that had 
trampled the country as oxen tread down the fur- 
rows, and who had brought from his service noth- 
ing except a wound, which had made him a cripple. 

When old Jehan Daas had reached his full 
eighty, his daughter had died in the Ardennes, hard 
by Stavelot, and had left him in legacy her two- 
year-old son. The old man could ill contrive to 
support himself, but he took the additional burden 
uncomplainingly, and it soon became welcome and 
precious to him. Little Hello — which was but a 

4. The Low Countries or Netherlands. 

SI. Hard by Stavelot. Near Stavelot, a town of Belgium. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


8 


A DOG OF FLANDEKS 


pet diminutive for E'icolas — throve with him, and 
the old man and the little child lived in the poor 
little hut contentedly. 

It was a very humble little mud-hut indeed, but 
5 it was clean and white as a sea-shell, and stood in a 
small plot of garden ground that yielded beans and 
herbs and pumpkins. 

They were very poor, terribly poor — many a day 
they had nothing at all to eat. They never by any 
10 chance had enough : to have had ^ enough to eat 
would have been to have reached paradise at once. 
But the old man was very gentle and good to the 
boy, and the boy was a beautiful, innocent, truth- 
ful, tender-natured creature; and they were happy 
15 on a crust and a few leaves of cabbage, and asked 
no more of earth or heaven; save indeed that Pa- 
trasche should be always with them, since without 
Patrasche where would they have been? 

For Patrasche was their alpha and omega; their 
20 treasury and granary ; their store of gold and wand 
of wealth; their bread-winner and minister; their 
only friend and comforter. Patrasche dead or 
gone from them, they must have laid themselves 
down and died likewise. Patrasche was body, 
25 brains, hands, head, and feet to both of them : Pa- 
trasche was their very life, their very soul. 


19. Alpha and Omega. The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet ; 
the beginning and end ; all. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


For Jelian Daas was old and a cripple, and Nello 
was but a child; and Patrasche was their dog. 

A dog of Flanders — yellow of hide, large of head 
and limb, with wolf -like ears that stood erect, and 
legs bowed and feet widened in the muscular de- 
velopment wrought in his breed by many genera- 
tions of hard service. Patrasche came of a race 
which had toiled hard and cruelly from sire to son 
in Flanders many a century— slaves of slaves, dogs 
of the people, beasts of the shafts and the harness, 
creatures that lived straining their sinews in the 
gall of the cart, and died breaking their hearts on 
the flints of the streets. 

Patrasche had been born of parents who had 
labored hard all their days over the sharp-set stones 
of ' the various cities and the long, shadowless, 
weary roads of the two Flanders and of Brabant. 
He had been born to no other heritage than those 
of pain and of toil. He had been fed on curses 
and baptized with blows. 

Before he was fully grown he had known the 
bitter gall of the cart and the collar. Before he 
had entered his thirteenth month he had become 
the property of a hardware dealer, who was accus- 
tomed to wander over the land north and south, 
from the blue sea to the green mountains. They 

3. A dog of Flanders. In Belgium and other countries of Northern 
Europe dogs are used as beasts of draught and burden. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


10 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


sold him for a small price, because he was so 
young. 

His purchaser was a sullen, ill-living, brutal Bra- 
bantois, who heaped his cart full of pots and pans 
5 and flagons and buckets, and other wares of crock- 
ery and brass and tin, and left Patrasche to draw 
the load as best he might, whilst he himself lounged 
idly by the side in fat and sluggish ease, smoking 
his black pipe and stopping at every wineshop or 
10 cafe on the road. 

Happily for Patrasche — or unhappily — he was 
very strong : he came of an iron race, long born and 
bred to such cruel travail; so that he did not die, 
but managed to drag on a wretched existence under 
15 the. brutal burdens, the scarifying lash, the hun- 
ger, the thirst, the blows, the curses, and the 
exhaustion which are the only wages which the 
Flemings pay the most patient and laborious of 
all their fourfooted victims. 

20 One day, after two years of this long and deadly 
agony, Patrasche was going on as usual along one 
of the straight, dusty, unlovely roads that lead to 
the city of Kubens. 


3. Brabantois. An inhabitant of Brabant, a province in the south of 
the Netherlands. 

13. Travail. Severe toil. 

15. Scarifying. Cutting, painful. 

23. The city of Rubens. Antwerp. In the sixteenth century this 
great commercial city was a famous art center of the Flemish school. It 
was the birthplace of the artists Jordaens, Teniers, and Van Dyke, and the 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


11 


It was full midsummer, and very warm. His 
cart was very heavy, piled high with goods in metal 
and in earthenware. His owner sauntered on 
without noticing him otherwise than by the 
cl’ack of the whip as it curled round his quiver- 5 
ing loins. 

The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself 
at every wayside house, but he had forbidden Pa- 
trasche to stop a moment for a draught from the 
canal. Going along thus, in the full sun, on a 10 
scorching highway, having eaten nothing for twen- 
ty-four hours, and, which was far worse to him, not 
ha\dng tasted water for nearly twelve, being blind 
with dust^ sore with blows and stupefied with the 
merciless vreight which dragged upon his loins, 15 
Patrasche, for once, staggered and foamed a little 
at the mouth, and fell; 

He fell in the middle of the white, dusty road, 
in the full glare of the sun: he was sick unto death, 
and motionless. His master gave him the only 20 
medicine in his pharmacy — kicks and oaths and 
blows with a cudgel of oak, which had been often 
the* only food and drink, the only wage and reward, 
ever offered to him. 

But Patrasche was beyond the reach of any 25 
torture or of any curses. Patrasche lay, dead to all 


home of Rnbens. Peter Pan! Rubens (1577-1640), perhaps the greatest of 
the Flemish artists, is “ famous for composition and marvelous in color.” 


12 


A DOG OF FLAXDERS 


appearances, down in the white powder of the sum- 
mer dust. 

After a while, finding it useless to assail his ribs 
with puuishment and his ears with maledictions, 
5 the Brabantois — deeming life gone in him, or gb- 
ing so nearly that his carcass was forever useless, 
unless indeed someone should strip it of the skin 
for gloves — cursed him fiercely in farewell, struck 
off the leathern bands of the harness, kicked his 
10 body heavily aside into the grass, and, groaning and 
muttering in savage wrath, pushed the cart lazily 
along the road up hill, and left the dying dog- there 
for the ants to sting and for the crows to pick. 

It was a busy road that day, and hundreds of peo- 
15 pie, on foot and on mules, in wagons and in carts, 
went by, tramping quickly and joyously on to Lou- 
vain. Some saw him, most did not even look: all 
passed on. A dead dog more or less — it was noth- 
ing in Brabant: it would be nothing anywhere in 
20 the world. 

After a time, amongst the holiday-makers, there 
came a little old man who was bent and lame, and 
very feeble. He was in no guise for feasting: he 
was very poorly and miserably clad, and he dragged 
25 his silent way slowly through the dust amongst the 
pleasure-seekers. 

He looked at Patrasche, paused, wondered. 


4. Maledictions. Curses. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


13 


turned aside, then kneeled down in the rank grass 
and weeds of the ditch, and surveyed the dog with 
kindly eyes of pity. 

There was with him a little rosy, fair-haired, 
dark-eyed child of a few years old, who pattered in 
amidst the bushes, that were for him breast-high, 
and stood gazing with a pretty seriousness upon the 
poor, great, quiet beast. 

Thus it was that these two first met — the little 
Nello and the big Patrasche. 

The upshot of the day was, that old Jehan Daas, 
with much laborious effort, drew the sufferer home- 
ward to his own little hut, which was a stone’s 
throw off amidst the fields, and there tended him 
with so much care that the sickness, which had 
been a brain-seizure, brought on by heat and thirst 
and exhaustion, with time and shade and rest passed 
away, and health and strength returned, and Pa- 
trasche staggered up again upon his four stout, 
tawny legs. 

Now for many weeks he had been useless, power- 
less, sore, near to death; but all this time he had 
heard no rough word, had felt no harsh touch, but 
only the pitying murmurs of the little child^s voice 
and the soothing caress of the old man’s hand. 

In his sickness they too had grown to care for 
him, this lonely old man and the little happy child. 

He had a corner of the hut, with a heap of dry 


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14 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


grass for his bed; and they had learned to listen 
eagerly for his breathing in the dark night, to tell 
them that he lived; and when he first was well 
enough to essay a loud, hollow, broken bay, they 
5 laughed aloud, and almost wept together for joy at 
such a sign of his sure restoration; and little Nello, 
in his delighted glee, hung round his rugged neck 
with chains of marguerites, and kissed him with 
fresh and ruddy lips. 

10 So then, when Patrasche arose, himself again, 
strong, big, gaunt, powerful, his great wistful eyes 
had a gentle astonishment in them that there were 
no curses to rouse him and no blows to drive him; 
and his heart awakened to a mighty love, which 
15 never wavered once in its fidelity whilst life abode 
with him. 

But Patrasche, being a dog, was grateful. Pa- 
trasche lay pondering long with grave, tender, 
musing brown eyes, watching the movements of his 
20 friends. 

I^ow, the old soldier, Jehan Daas, could do noth- 
ing for his living but limp about a little with a 
small cart, with which he carried daily the milk 
cans of those happier neighbors who owned cattle 
25 away into the town of Antwerp. 

The villagers gave him the employment a little 
out of charity — more because it suited them well 


8. Marguerites. Daisies. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


15 


to send their milk into the town by so honest a 
carrier, and bide at home themselves to look after 
their gardens, their cows, their poultry, or their lit- 
tle fields. But it was becoming hard work for the 
old man. He was eighty-three, and Antwerp was 
a good league off, or more. 

Patrasche watched the milk-cans come and go 
that first day when he had got well, and was lying 
in the sun with the wreath of marguerites round 
his tawny neck. 

The next morning, Patrasche, before the old man 
had touched the cart, arose and walked to it, and 
placed himself betwixt its handles, and testified, 
as plainly as dumb show could do, his desire and his 
ability to work in return for the bread of charity 
that he had eaten. Jehan Haas resisted long, for 
the old man was one of those who thought it a foul 
shame to bind dogs to labor for which nature never 
formed them. 

But Patrasche would not be gainsaid; finding 
they did not harness him, he tried to draw the cart 
onward with his teeth. 

At length Jehan Haas gave way, vanquished by 
the persistence and the gratitude of this creature 
whom he had succored. He fashioned his cart so 
that Patrasche could run in it, and this he did every 
morning of his life thenceforward. 

When the winter came, Jehan Haas thanked the 


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10 

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20 

25 


16 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


blessed fortune that bad brought him to the dying 
dog in the ditch that fair-day of Louvain; for he 
was very old, and he grew feebler with each year, 
and he would ill have known how to pull his load of 
5 milk-cans over the snows and through the deep ruts 
in the mud if it had not been for the strength and 
the industry of the animal he had befriended. 

As for Patrasche, it seemed heaven to him. 

After the frightful burdens that his old master 
10 had compelled him to strain under, at the call of 
the whip at every step, it seemed nothing to him 
but amusement to step out with this little light 
green cart, with its bright brass cans, by the side of 
the gentle old man who always paid him with a 
15 tender caress and with a kindly word. Besides, his 
work was over by three or four in the day, and after 
that time he was free to do as he would — to stretch 
himself, to sleep in the sun, to wander in the fields, 
to romp with the young child, or to play with his 
20 fellow-dogs. Patrasche was very happy. 

Fortunately for his peace, his former owner was 
killed in a drunken brawl at the kermesse of 
Mechlin, and so sought not after him nor disturbed 
him in his new and well-loved home. 

25 A few years later, old Jehan Daas, who had al- 
ways been a cripple, became so paralyzed with 


23. Mechlin. A city of BeljEjinm po famous for its laces that during the 
seventeenth century it was known as “ the city of laces.” 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 17 

rheumatism that it was impossible for him to go out 
with the cart any more. 

Then little hTello, being now grown to his sixth 
year of age, and knowing the town well from hav- 
ing accompanied his grandfather so many times, 
i:ook his place beside the cart, and sold the milk and 
received the coins in exchange, and brought them 
back to their respective owners with a pretty grace 
and seriousness which charmed all who* beheld him. 

The little Ardennois was a beautiful child, with 
dark, grave, tender eyes, and a lovely bloom upon 
his face, and fair locks that clustered to his throat; 
and many an artist sketched the group as they went 
by him — the green cart with^.the brass flagons of 
milk, and the great, tawny-cO^ored, massive dog, 
with his belled harness, that chimed cheerily as he 
went, and the small flgure that ran beside him, 
which had little white feet in great wooden shoes, 
and a soft, grave, innocent, happy face like the lit- 
tle fair children of Rubens. 

.ISTello and Patrasche did the work so well and 
so joyfully together that Jehan Daas himself, when 
the summer came and he was better again, had no 
need to stir out, but could sit in the doorway in the 
sun, and see them go forth through the garden 
wicket, and then doze, and dream, and pray a little, 

18. Wooden shoes. These are worn by peasants in France, the 
Netherland-", and other parts of Europe. 


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10 

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20 

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18 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


•and then awake again as the clock tolled three, and 
watch for their return. And on their return Pa- 
trasche would shake himself free of his harness 
with a bay of glee, and hlello would recount with 
5 pride the doings of the day; and they would all go 
in together to their meal of rye bread and milk or 
soup, and would see the shadows lengthen over the 
plain, and see the twilight veil the fair cathedral 
spire; and then lie down together to sleep peace- 
10 fully while the old man said a prayer. 

So the days and the years went on, and the lives 
of l^ello and Patrasche were happy, innocent, and 
healthful. 


II 

In the spring and summer especially were they 
15 glad. ’ Flanders is not a lovely land, and around 
the burgh of Pubens it is perhaps least lovely 
of all. 

Anyway, there is a greenery and breadth of 
space enough to be as good as beauty to a child and 
20a dog; and these two asked no better, when their 
work was done, than to lie buried in the lush 
grasses on the side of the canal, and watch the cum- 
brous vessels drifting by, and bringing the crisp salt 
smell of the sea amongst the blossoming scents of 
25 the country summer. 


21. Lush. Fresh and luxuriant. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


19 


In winter the winds found many holes in the 
walls of the poor little hut, and the vine was black 
and leafless, and the bare lands looked very bleak 
and drear without, and sometimes within the floor 
was flooded and then frozen. In winter it was 
hard, and the snow numbed the little white limbs 
of E^ello, and the icicles cut the brave, untiring feet 
of Patrasche. 

But even then they were never heard to lament, 
either of them. The child’s wooden shoes and the 
dog’s four legs would trot manfully together over 
the frozen fields to the chime of the bells on the 
harness; and then sometimes, in the streets of Ant- 
werp, some housewife would bring them a bowl of 
soup and a handful of bread, or some kindly trader 
would throw some billets of fuel into the little cart 
as it went homeward, or some woman in their own 
village would bid them keep some share of the milk 
they carried for their own food; and then they 
would run over the white lands, through the early 
darkness, bright and happy, and burst with a shout 
of joy into, their home. 

So, on the whole, it was well with them, very 
well; and Patrasche, meeting on the highway or in 
the public streets the many dogs who toiled from 
daybreak into nightfall, paid only with blows and 
curses, and loosened from the shafts with a kick to 
starve and freeze as best they might, — Patrasche in 


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10 

15 

20 

25 


20 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


his heart was very grateful to his fate, and thought 
it the fairest and the kindliest the world could hold. 
Though he was often very hungry indeed when he 
lay down at night; though he had to work in the 
5 heats of summer noons and the rasping chills of 
winter dawns; though his /feet were often tender 
with wounds from the sharp edges of the jagged 
pavement; though he had to perform tasks beyond 
his strength and against his nature, — ^yet he was 
10 grateful and content: he did his duty with each 
day, and the eyes that he loved smiled down on 
him. It was sufficient for Patrasche. 

There was only one thing which caused Pa- 
trasche any uneasiness in his life, and it was this. 
15 Antwerp, as all the world knows, is full at every 
turn of old piles of stones, dark and ancient and 
majestic, standing in crooked courts, jammed 
against gateways and taverns, rising by the water’s 
edge, with bells ringing above them in the air, and 
20 ever and again out of their arched doors a swell of 
music pealing. 

E’ow, the trouble of Patrasche was this. 

Into these great sad piles of stones, that reared 
their melancholy majesty above the crowded roofs, 
25 the child Hello would many and many a time enter, 
and disappear through their dark, arched portals, 
whilst Patrasche, left without upon the pavement, 
would wearily and vainly ponder on what could be 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


21 


the charm which thus allured from him his insepa- 
rable and beloved companion. 

Once or twice he did essay to see for himself, 
clattering up the steps with his milk-cart behind 
him; but thereon he had been always sent back 
again summarily by a tall custodian in black clothes 
and silver chains of office; and fearful of bringing 
his little master into trouble, he desisted, and re- 
mained couched patiently before the churches until 
such time as the boy reappeared. 

It was not the fact of his going into them which 
disturbed Patrasche: he knew that people went to 
church: all the village went to the small, tumble- 
down, gray pile opposite the red windmill. What 
troubled him was that little Hello always looked 
strangely when he came out, always very flushed 
or very pale ; and whenever he returned home after 
such visitations would sit silent and dreaming, not 
caring to play, but gazing out at the evening skies 
beyond the line of the canal, very subdued and 
almost sad. 

What was it? wondered Patrasche. 

He thought it could not be good or natural for 
the little lad to be so grave, and, in his dumb 
fashion, he tried all he could to keep Hello by him 
in the sunny fields or in the busy market-place. 

But to the churches Hello would not go: most 
often of all would he go to the great cathedral; and 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


22 


A DOG OP FLANDERS 


Patrasche, left without on the stones by the iron 
fragments of Quentin Matsys^ gate, would stretch 
himself and yawn and sigh, and even howl now and 
then, all in vain, until the doors closed and the child 
5 perforce came forth again, and winding his arms 
about the dog’s neck, would kiss him on his broad, 
tawny-colored forehead, and murmur always the 
same words: 

If I could only see them, Patrasche! — if* I 
10 could only see them! ” 

What were they? pondered Patrasche, looking 
up with large, wistful, sympathetic eyes. 

One day, when the custodian was out of the way 
and the doors left ajar, he got in for a moment after 
15 his little friend and saw. They ” were two great 
covered pictures on either side of the choir. 

Nello was kneeling, wrapt as in an ecstasy, be- 
fore the altar-picture of the Assumption, and when 
he noticed Patrasche, and rose and drew the dog 
20 gently out into the air, his face was wet with tears, 
and he looked up at the veiled places as he passed 
them, and murmured to his companion: 

It is so terrible not to see them, Patrasche, just 

2. Quentin Matsys.* There is a legend that Quentin Matsys or Massys 
(1460-1530) a Flemish artist, was a blacksmiih until love for an artist’s 
daughter led him to make painting his profession. 

5. Perforce. Of necessity. 

15. They, etc. Rubens’ masterpieces, “The Descent from the Cross’* 
and “The Elevation of the Cross,” hang in the transept of the Antwerp 
Cathedral, one on each side of the choir. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


23 


because one is poor and cannot pay! He never 
meant that the poor should not see them when he 
painted them, I am sure. He would have had us 
see them any day, — every day: that I am sure. 
And they keep them shrouded there, — shrouded in 
the dark, the beautiful things! — and they never 
feel the light, and no eyes to look on them, unless 
rich people come and pay. If I could only see 
them, I would be content to die.’’ 

But he could not see them, and Patrasche could 
not help him, for to gain the silver piece that the 
Church exacts as the price for looking on the glo- 
ries of the Elevation of the Cross ” and the De- 
scent from the Cross” was a thing as utterly beyond 
the powers of either of them as it would have been 
to scale the heights of the cathedral spire. 

They had never so much as a sou to spare: if 
they cleared enough to get a little wood for the 
stove, a little broth for the pot, it was the utmost 
they could do. And yet the heart of the child was 
set in sore and endless longing upon beholding the 
greatness of the two veiled Rubens. 

The whole soul of the little Ardennois thrilled 
and stirred with an absorbing passion for art. 

Going on his ways through the old city in the 
early daybreak before the sun or the people had 

17. Sou. An oM French copper coin worth about one cent. 

22. Rubens, Paintings by Rubens. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


24 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


seen them, Nello, who looked only a little peasant 
boy, with a great dog drawing milk to sell from 
door to door, was in a heaven of dreams, whereof 
Rubens was the god. IS^ello, cold and hungry, 
5 with stockingless feet in wooden shoes, and the win- 
ter winds blowing amongst his curls and lifting 
his poor thin garments, was in a rapture of medita- 
tion, wherein all that he saw was the beautiful fair 
face of the Mary of The Assumption,^’ with the 
10 waves of her golden hair lying upon her shoulders, 
and the light of an eternal sun shining down upon 
her brow. I^ello, reared in poverty and buffeted 
by fortune, and untaught in letters, and unheeded 
by men, had the compensation or the curse which 
15 is called Genius. 

IN’o one knew it. He as little as any. Ho one 
knew it. 

Only indeed Patrasche, who being with him al- 
ways, saw him draw with chalk upon the stones any 
20 and every thing that grew or breathed, — heard him 
on his little bed of hay, murmur all manner of 
timid, pathetic prayers to the spirit of the great 
Master; watched his gaze darken and his face radi- 
ate at the evening glow of sunset or the rosy rising 
25 of the dawn ; and felt, many and many a time, the 
tears of a strange, nameless pain and joy mingled 
together, fall hotly from the bright young eyes 
upon his own wrinkled, yellow forehead. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


25 


“ I should go to my grave quite content if I 
thought, E’ello, that when thou growest a man thou 
couldst own this hut and the little plot of ground, 
and labor for thyself, and be called Baas by thy 
neighbors,’’ said the old man J ehan many an hour 5 
from his bed. 

For to own a bit of soil, and to be called Baas — 
master — by the hamlet round, is to have achieved 
the highest ideal of a Flemish peasant; and the old 
soldier, who had wandered over all the earth in his 10 
youth, and had brought nothing back, deemed in 
his old age that to live and die on one spot in con- 
tented humility was the fairest fate he could desire 
for his darling. 

E’ello dreamed of other things in the future than 15 
of tilling the little rood of earth, and living under 
the wattle roof, and being called Baas by neighbors 
a little poorer or a little less poor than himself. \ 
The cathedral spire, where it rose beyond the fields 
in the ruddy evening skies or in the dim, gray, 20 
misty mornings, said other things to him 
than this. But these he told only to Patrasche, 
whispering, childlike, his fancies in the dog’s ear 
when they went together at their work through the 
fogs of the daybreak, or lay together at their rest 25 
amongst the rustling rushes by the water’s side. 


16. Rood. One-fourth of an acre. 

17. Wattle. Made of twigs. 


26 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


For such dreams are not easily shaped into 
speech to awake the slow sympathies of human 
auditors; and they would only have sorely per- 
plexed and troubled the poor old man, bedridden 
5 in his corner, who, for his part, whenever he had 
trodden the streets of Antwerp, had thought the 
daub of blue and red that they called a Madonna, 
on the walls of the wine-shop where he drank his 
sou’s worth of black beer, quite as good as any of 
10 the famous altarpieces for which the stranger-folk 
traveled far and y^ide into Flanders from every 
land on which the good sun shone. 

There was only one other besides Patrasche to 
whom N^ello could talk at all of his daring fantasies. 
15 This other was little Alois, who lived at the old red 
mill on the grassy mound, and whose father, the 
miller, was the best-to-do husbandman in all the 
village. 

Little Alois was only a pretty baby, with soft, 
20 round, rosy features, made lovely by those sweet 
dark eyes that the Spanish rule has left in so many 
a Flemish face, in testimony of the Alvan domin- 


7. Madonna, (7L, Ma Donna, my lady.) A picture of the Virgin Mary. 

21. Spanish rule. The Netherlands, having become a part of the 
duchy of Burgundy, was inherited by Charles V. of Spain. Philip ll.’s 
despotic rule drove the country to a rebellion which, after eighty years, 
resulted in the establishment of indep-^ndence. 

22. The Alvan dominion. The Duke of Alba or Alva (1508-82) was 
prime minister and general of the Spanish armies under Charles V. and 
Philip II. Sent by Ph'lip to quell the insurrection in the Netherlands, he 
waged ruthless war there from 1567 to 1573. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


27 


ion, as Spanisli art has left, broadsown throughout 
the country, majestic palaces and stately courts, 
gilded house fronts and sculptured lintels — ^histo- 
ries in blazonry and poems in stone. 

Little Alois was often with l^ello and Patrasche. 
They played in the fields, they ran in the snow, 
they gathered the daisies and bilberries, they went 
up to the old gray church together, and they often 
sat together by the broad wood-fire in the mill- 
house. 

Little Alois, indeed, was the richest child in the 
hamlet. She had neither brother nor sister; her 
blue serge dress had never a hole in it; at kermesse 
she had as many gilded nuts and Agni Dei in sugar 
as her hands could hold; and when she went up for 
her first communion, her flaxen curls were covered 
with a cap of richest Mechlin lace, which had been 
her mother’s and her grandmother’s before it came 
to her. Men spoke already, though she had but 
twelve years, of the good wife she would be for 
their sons to woo and win; but she herself was a 
little, gay, simple child, in nowise conscious of her 
heritage, and she loved no playfellows so well as 
Jehan Daas’ grandson, and his dog. 

One day her father. Baas Cogez, a good man, 

14. Agni Dei. An Agnus Dei is a figure of a lamb bearing a cross or 
flag. 

22 . Nowise conscious of her heritage. Not realizing her impor- 
tance as heiress. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


28 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


but somewhat stern, came on a pretty group in the 
long meadow behind the mill, where the aftermath 
had that day been cut. 

It was his little daughter sitting amidst the hay, 
5 with the great tawny head of Patrasche on her lap, 
and many wreaths of poppies and blue cornflowers 
round them both: on a clean smooth slab of pine 
wood the boy ^ello drew their likeness with a stick 
of charcoal. 

10 The miller stood and looked at the portrait with 
tears in his eyes, it was so strangely like, and he 
loved his only child closely and well. Then he 
roughly chid the little girl for idling there whilst 
her mother needed her within, and sent her in- 
15 doors crying and afraid : then, turning, he snatched 
the wood from Nello’s hands. 

Dost do much of such folly?’’ he asked, but 
there was a tremble in his voice. 

E^ello colored and hung his head. I draw 
20 everything I see,” he murmured. 

The miller was silent : then he stretched his hand 
out with a franc in it. 

It is folly, as I say, and evil waste of time : 
nevertheless, it is like Alois, and will please the 
25 house-mother. Take this silver bit for it and leave 
it for me.” 


2. Aftermath. The second crop of grass or hay. 

22. Franc. A French silver coin worth about nineteen cents. 


A DOG OF FLANDEKS 


29 


The color died out of the face of the young Ar- 
dennois: he lifted his head and put his hands 
behind his back. 

Keep your money and the portrait both, Baas 
Cogez,’’ he said simply. You have been often 
good to me.’’ 

^ Then he called Patrasche to him, and walked 
away across the fields. 

I could have seen them with that franc,” he 
murmured to Patrasche, but I could not sell her 
picture — not even for them.” 

Baas Cogez went into his mill-house sore trou- 
bled in his mind. 

That lad must not be so much with Alois,” he 
said to his wife that night. Trouble may come 
of it. hereafter : he is fifteen now, and she is twelve ; 
and the boy is comely of face and form.” 

And he is a good lad and a loyal,” said the 
housewife, feasting her eyes on the piece of pine 
wood where it was throned above the chimney 
with a cuckoo clock in oak and a Calvary in 
wax. 

Yea, I do not gainsay that,” said the miller, 
draining his pewter fiagon. 

“ Then if what you think of were to come to 
pass,” said the wife hesitatingly, would it mat- 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


21. A Calvary. A represenfatioti of the Crucifixion. 

23. Yea, I do not gainsay that. Yes, I do not deny that. 


30 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


ter so mucli? Slie will liave enough for both, and 
one cannot he better than happy.’’ 

You are a woman, and therefore a fool,” said 
the miller harshly, striking his pipe on the table. 

5 The lad is nought but a beggar, and, with these 
painter’s fancies, worse than a beggar. Have a 
care that they are not together in the future, or I 
will send the child to the surer keeping of the nuns 
of the Sacred Heart.” 

10 The poor mother was terrified, and promised 
humbly to do his will. Hot that she could bring 
herself altogether to separate the child from her 
favorite playmate, nor did the miller even desire 
that extreme cruelty to a young lad who was guilty 
15 of nothing except poverty. But there were many 
ways in which little Alois was kept away from her 
chosen companion; and Hello, being a boy, proud 
and quiet and sensitive, was quickly wounded, and 
ceased to turn his own steps and those of Patrasche, 
20 as he had been used to do with every moment of 
leisure, to the old red mill upon the slope. 

What his offense was he did not know: he sup- 
posed he had in some manner angered Baas Cogez 
by taking the portrait of Alois in the meadow; and 
25 when the child who loved him would run to him 
and nestle her hand in his, he would smile at her 


9. The Sacred Heart. An order of nuns whose main object is the 
education of girls of well-to-do parentage. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


31 


very sadly, and say .with a tender concern for her 
before himself : 

N’ay, Alois, do not anger your father. He 
thinks that I make yon idle, dear, and he is not 
pleased that you should be with me. He is a good 
man and loves you well: we will not anger him, 
Alois.’’ 

But it was with a sad heart that he said it, and 
the earth did not look so bright to him as it had 
used to do when he went out at sunrise under the 
poplars down the straight roads with Patrasche. 

The old red mill had been a landmark to him, 
and he had been used to pause by it, going and com- 
ing, for a cheery greeting with its people as her lit- 
tle flaxen head rose above the low mill-wicket, 
and her little rosy hands had held out a bone or a 
crust to Patrasche. 

How the' dog looked wistfully at a closed door, 
and the boy went on without pausing, with a pang 
at his heart, and the child sat within with tears 
dropping slowly on the knitting to which she was 
set on her little stool by the stove ; and Baas Cogez, 
working among his sacks and his mill gear, would 
harden his will, and say to himself, It is best so. 
The lad is all but a beggar, and full of idle, dream- 
ing fooleries. Who knows what mischief might 
not come of it in the future? ” 

So he was wise in his generation, and would not 


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10 

15 

20 

25 


32 


A DOG OF FLANDEKS 


have the door unbarred, except upon rare and for- 
mal occasions, which seemed to have neither 
warmth nor mirth in them to the two children, who 
had been accustomed so long to a daily, gleeful, 
5 careless, happy interchange of greeting, speech, and 
pastime, with no other watcher of their sports or 
auditor of their fancies than Patrasche, sagely 
shaking the brazen bells of his collar and respond- 
ing with all a dog^s swift sympathies to their every 
10 change of mood. ^ ■ 

All this while the little panel of pine wood re- 
mained over the chimney in the mill kitchen with 
the cuckoo clock and the waxen Calvary, and some- 
times it seemed to ISTello a little hard that whilst his 
15 gift was accepted he himself should be denied. 

But he did not complain: it was his habit to be 
quiet: old Jehan Daas had said ever to him, We 
are poor: we must take what God sends — the ill 
with the good: the poor cannot choose.” 

20 To which the boy had always listened in silence, 
being reverent of his old grandfather; but never- 
theless a certain vague and sweet hope, such as be- 
guiles the children of genius, had whispered in his 
heart, Yet the poor do choose sometimes — choose 
25 to be great, so that men cannot say them nay.” 

And he thought so still in his innocence; and 
one day, when the little Alois, finding him by 
chance alone amongst the cornfields by the canal. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


33 


ran to him and held him close, and sobbed piteously 
because the morrow would be her saint^s day, and 
for the first time in all her life her parents had. 
failed to bid him to the little supper and romp in 
the great barns with which her feast-day was 
always celebrated, I^^ello had kissed her, and mur- 
mured to her in firm faith: 

It shall be different one day, Alois. One day 
that little bit of pine wood that your father has of 
mixie shall be worth its weight in silver ; and he will 
not shut the door against me then. Only love me 
always, dear little Alois; only love me always, and 
I will be great.” 

And if I do not love you? ” the pretty child 
asked, pouting a little through her tears, and moved 
by the instinctive coquetries of her sex. 

Hello’s eyes left her face and wandered to the 
distance, where in the red and gold of the Flemish 
night the cathedral spire rose. 

There was a smile on his face so sweet and yet so 
sad that little Alois was awed by it. 

I will be great still,” he said under his breath 
— great still, or die, Alois.” 

You do not love me, then!” said the little 
spoilt child, pushing him away; but the boy shook 
his head and smiled, and Avent on his way through 

2 . Her saint’s day. The festival of the saint after whom she W'as 
named, 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


34 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


the tall yellow corn, seeing as in a vision some day 
in a fair future when he should come into that old 
familiar land and ask Alois of her people, and be 
not refused nor denied, but received in honor, 
5 whilst the village folk should throng to look upon 
him, and say in one another’s ears, Dost see him? 
He is a king among men, for he is a great artist 
and the world speaks his name; and yet he was 
only our poor little Hello, who was a beggar, as one 
10 may say, and only got his bread by the help of his 
dog.” 

And he thought how he would fold his grand- 
sire in furs and purples, and portray him as the 
old man is portrayed in the Familj^ in the chapel 
15 of St. Jacques ; and of how he would hang the 
throat of Patrasche with a collar of gold, and place 
him on his right hand, and say to the people, This 
was once my only friend ” ; and of how he would 
build himself a great white marble palace, and 
20 make to himself luxuriant gardens of pleasure, on 
the slope looking outward to where the cathedral- 
spire rose, and not dwell in it himself, but summon 
to it, as to a home, all men young and poor and 
friendless, but of the will to do mighty things; and 
25 of how he would say to them always, if they sought 

12. Fold his grandsire in furs and purple. Dress his grandfather 
nnignifict'iitly. 

13. The old man, etc. Rubens’ father iu the family picture in his 
memorial cLapel. 


A DOG OF FLANDEES 35 

to bless bis name, ^^ay, do not thank me — thank 
Rubens. Without him, what should I have been?’^ 

These dreams, beautiful, impossible, innocent, 
free of all selfishness, full of heroical worship, were 
so closely about him as he went that he was happy 
— happy even on this sad anniversary of Alois’ 
saint’s day, when he and Patrasche went home by 
themselves to the little dark hut and the meal of 
black bread, whilst in the mill-house all the chil- 
dren of the village sang and laughed, and ate the 
big round cakes of Dijon and the almond ginger- 
bread of Brabant, and danced in the great bam to 
the light of the stars and the music of flute and 
fiddle. 

Never mind, Patrasche,” he said, with his arms 
round the dog’s neck as they both sat in the door 
of the hut, where the sounds of the mirth at the 
mill came down to them on the night air — never 
mind. It shall all be changed by and by.” 

He believed in the future: Patrasche, of more 
experience and of more philosophy, thought that 
the loss of the mill supper in the present was ill 
compensated by dreams of milk and honey in some 
vague hereafter. 

And Patrasche growled whenever he passed by 
Baas Cogez. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


9. Black bread. Eye broad. 

23. Milk and honey. Bountiful fare. 


36 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


III 

This is Alois’s name-day, is it not? ’’ said the 
old man Daas that night from the corner where he 
was stretched upon his bed of sacking. 

The boy gave a gesture of assent : he wished that 
5 the old man’s memory had erred a little, instead of 
keeping such exact account. 

And why not there? ” his grandfather pursued. 

Thou hast never missed a year before, E’ello.” 

Thou art too sick to leave,” murmured the lad, 
10 bending his handsome young head over the bed. 

^^Tut! tut! Mother E'ulette would have come 
and sat with me, as she does scores of times. What 
is the cause, E’ello?” the old man persisted. 

Thou surely hast not had ill words with the little 
15 one? ” 

Hay, grandfather — never,” said the boy 
quickly, with a hot color in his bent face. 

Simply and truly. Baas Cogez did not have me 
asked this year. He has taken some whim against 
20 me.” 

But thou hast done nothing wrong? ” 

That I know — nothing. I took the portrait 
of Alois on a piece of pine: that is all.” 

Ah!” 

25 The old man was silent: the truth suggested 


1. Name-day. Saint’s day. 


A DOG OF FLANDEKS 


37 


itself to him with the boy’s innocent answer. He 
was tied to a bed of dried leaves in the corner of 
a wattle hut, but he had not wholly forgotten what 
the ways of the world were like. 

He drew Hello’s fair head fondly to his breast 
with a tenderer gesture. 

Thou art very poor, my child,” he said, with a 
quiver the more in his aged trembling voice — so 
poor! It is very hard for thee.” 

Hay, I am rich,” murmured Hello; and in his 
innocence he thought so — rich with the imperish- 
able powers that are mightier than the might of 
kings. And he went and stood by the door of the 
hut in the quiet autumn night, and watched the 
stars troop by and the tall poplars bend and shiver 
in the wind. 

All the casements of the mill-house were lighted, 
and every now and then the notes of the flute came 
to him. The tears fell down his cheeks, for he 
was but a child, yet he smiled, for he said to him- 
self, In the future ! ” 

He stayed there until all was quite still and dark, 
then he and Patrasche went within and slept to- 
gether, long and deeply, side by side. 

How he had a secret which only Patrasche knew. 
There was a little outhouse to the hut, which no 
one entered but himself — a dreary place, but with 
abundant clear light from the north. Here he had 


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10 

15 

20 

25 


38 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


fashioned himself rudely an easel in rough lumber, 
and here on a great gray sea of stretched paper he 
had given shape to one of the innumerable fancies 
which possessed his brain. 

5 'No one had ever taught him anything; colors 
he had no means to buy ; he had gone without bread 
many a time to procure even the few rude vehicles 
that he had here; and it was only in black and 
white that he could fashion the things he saw. 
10 This great figure which he had drawn here in chalk 
was only an old man sitting on a fallen tree — only 
that. He had seen old Michel the woodman sit- 
ting so at evening many a time. 

He had never had a soul to tell him of outline 
15 or perspective, of anatomy or of shadow, and yet 
he had given all the weary, worn-out age, all the 
sad, quiet patience, all the rugged, careworn pathos 
of his original, and given them so that the old 
lonely figure was a poem, sitting there, meditative 
20 and alone, on the dead tree, with the darkness of 
the descending night behind him. 

It was rude, of course, in a way, and had many 
faults, no doubt; and yet it was real, true in 
Hature, true in Art, and very mournful, and in a 
25 manner beautiful. 

Patrasche had lain quiet countless hours watch- 
ing its gradual creation after the labor of each day 


7. Vehicles. Materials. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


39 


was done, and lie knew that ISTello had a hope — 
vain and wild perhaps, but strongly cherished — of 
sending this great drawing to compete for a prize 
of two hundred francs a year, which it was an- 
nounced in Antwerp would he open to every lad of 
talent, scholar or peasant, under eighteen, who 
would attempt to win it with some unaided work 
of chalk or pencil. Three of the foremost artists 
in the town of Rubens were to be the judges and 
elect the victor according to his merits. 

All the spring and summer and autumn R’ello 
had been at work upon this treasure, which, if tri- 
umphant, would build him his first step toward 
independence, and the mysteries of the art which 
he blindly, ignorantly, and yet passionately adored. 

He said nothing to anyone: his grandfather 
would not have understood, and little Alois was lost 
to him. Only to Patrasche he told all, and whis- 
pered, Rubens would give it me, I think, if he 
knew.” 

Patrasche thought so too, for he knew that Ru- 
bens had loved dogs or he had never painted them 
with such exquisite fidelity; and men who loved 
dogs were, as Patrasche knew, always pitiful. 

21. Rubens had loved dogs. Rubens is especially renowned for his 
paintings of children and animals. He was a man kind-hearted and pitiful. 
His doors were always open to those who needed help or advice, and it 
seemed to give him real pleasure to acknowledge the merits of a brother 
artist I 


5 

10 

15 

20 


40 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


The drawings were to go in on the first day of 
December, and the decision be given on the twenty- 
fourth, so that he who should win might rejoice 
with all his people at the Christmas season. 

5 In the twilight of a bitter wintry day, and with a 
beating heart, now quick with hope, now faint with 
fear, Hello placed the great picture on his little 
green milk cart, and took it, with the help of Pa- 
trasche, into the town, and there left it, as enjoined, 
10 at the doors of a public building. 

Perhaps it is worth nothing at all. How can 
I tell? ’’ he thought, with the heartsickness of a 
great timidity. 

How that he had left it there, it seemed to him 
15 so hazardous, so vain, so foolish, to dream that he, 
a little lad with bare feet, who barely knew his let- 
ters, could do anything at which great painters, real 
artists, could ever deign to look. 

Yet he took heart as he went by the cathedral: 
^0 the lordly form of Eubens seemed to rise from the 
fog and the darkness, and to loom in its magnifi- 
cence before him, whilst the lips, with their kindly 
smile, seemed to him to murmur, Hay, have 
courage! It was not by a weak heart and by faint 
25 fears that I wrote my name for all time upon 
Antwerp.’’ 

Hello ran home through the cold night, com- 
forted. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 41 

He had done his best: the rest must be as God 
willed, he thought, in that innocent, unquestioning 
faith which had been taught him in the little chapel 
amongst the willows and the poplar trees. 

The winter was very sharp already. That night, 
after they reached the hut, snow fell; and fell for 
very many days after that, so that the paths and the 
dmsions in the fields were all obliterated, and all 
the smaller streams were frozen over, and the cold 
was intense upon the plains. Then, indeed, it be- 
came hard work to go round for the milk, while the 
world was all dark, and carry it through the dark- 
ness to the silent town. 

Hard work, especially for Patrasche, for the pas- 
sage of the years, that were only bringing Hello a 
stronger youth, were bringing him old age, and his 
joints were stiff, and his bones ached often. But 
he would never give up his share of the labor. 
Hello would fain have spared him, and drawn the 
cart himself, but Patrasche would never allow it. 
All he would ever permit or accept was the help of 
a thrust from behind to the truck as it lumbered 
along through the ice ruts. Patrasche had lived 
in harness, and he was proud of it. He suffered a 
great deal sometimes from frost, and the ter- 
rible roads, and the rheumatic pains of his limbs, 
but he only drew his breath hard and bent his 
proud neck, and trod onward with steady patience. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


42 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


“ Kest thee at home, Patrasche — it is time thou 
didst rest — and I can quite well push in the cart hj 
myself,’’ urged I^ello many a morning; but Pa- 
trasche, who understood him aright, would no more 
5 have consented to stay at home than a veteran sol- 
dier to shirk when the charge was sounding; and 
every day he would rise and place himself in the 
shafts, and plod along over the snow, through the 
fields that his four round feet had left their print 
10 upon so many, many years. 

One must never rest till one dies,” thought 
Patrache ; and sometimes it seemed tcf him that that 
time of rest for him was not very far off. His 
sight was less clear than it had been, and it gave 
15 him pain to rise after the night’s sleep, though he 
would never lie a moment in his straw when once 
the bell of the chapel, tolling five, let him know 
that the daybreak labor had begun. 

My poor Patrasche, we shall soon lie quiet to- 
20 gether, you and I,” said old J ehan Haas, stret hing 
out to stroke the head of Patrasche with tl e old 
withered hand which had always shared with him 
its one poor crust of bread; and the hearts of the 
old man and the old dog ached together with one 
25 thought: When they were gone who would care 
for their darling? 

One afternoon, as they came back from Ant- 
werp, over the snow, which had become hard and 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 43 

smooth as marble over all the Flemish plains, they 
found dropped in the road a pretty little puppet — 
a tamborine player, all scarlet and gold, about six 
inches high, and, unlike greater personages when 
Fortune lets them drop, quite unspoiled and unhurt 
by his fall. It was a pretty toy. FTello tried to 
find its owner, and, failing, thought that it was just 
the thing to please Alois. 

It was quite night when he passed the mill-house : 
he knew the little window of her room. It could 
be no harm, he thought, if he gave her his little 
piece of treasure-trove, they had been playfellows 
so long. 

There was a shed with a sloping roof beneath her 
casement: he climbed and tapped softly at the lat- 
tice: there was a little light within. 

The child opened it and looked out, half 
frightened. 

ISTello put the tambourine player into her hands. 

Here is a doll I found in the snow, Alois. 
Take it,’’ he whispered — take it, and God bless 
thee, dear! ” 

lie slid down from the shed roof before she had 
time to thank him, and ran off through the dark- 
ness. 

That night there was a fire at the mill. Out- 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


2. Puppet, Doll. 

12. Treasure-trove. Treasure found whose owner is undiscovered. 


44 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


buildings and much corn were destroyed, although 
the mill itself and the dwelling house were un- 
harmed. All the village was out in terror, and the 
engines came tearing through the snow from Ant- 
5 werp. The miller was insured, and would lose 
nothing : nevertheless, he was in furious wrath, and 
declared aloud that the fire was due to no accident, 
but to some foul intent. 

E"ello, awakened from his sleep, ran to help with 
10 the rest ; Baas Cogez thrust him angrily aside. 

‘‘ Thou wert loitering here after dark,’’ he said 
roughly. I believe, on my soul, thou dost know 
more of the fire than anyone.” 

Nello heard him in silence, stupefied, not sup- 
15 posing that anyone could say such things except 
in jest, and not comprehending how anyone could 
pass a jest at such a time. 

ISTevertheless, the miller said the brutal thing 
openly to many of his neighbors in the day that 
20 followed; and though no serious charge was ever 
preferred against the lad, it got bruited about that 
ATello had been seen in the mill yard after dark on 
some unspoken errand, and that he bore Baas 
Cogez a grudge for forbidding his intercourse with 
25 little Alois; and so the hamlet, which followed the 
sayings of its richest landowner servilely, and 
whose families all hoped to secure the riches of 


21. Bruited about. Noised abroad, rumored. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


45 


Alois in some future time for their sons, took the 
hint to give grave looks and cold words to old 
Jehan Daas’ grandson. 

N^o one said anything to him openly, but all the 
village agreed together to humor the miller’s preju- 
dice, and at the cottages and farms where Nello and 
Patrasche called every morning for the milk for 
Antwerp, downcast glances and brief phrases re- 
placed to them the broad smiles and cheerful greet- 
ings to which they had been always used. JTo one 
really credited the miller’s absurd suspicion, nor the 
outrageous accusations born of them, but the people 
were all very poor and very ignorant, and the one 
rich man of the place had pronounced against him. 
N^ello, in his innocence and his friendlessness, had 
no strength to stem the popular tide. 

Thou art very cruel to the lad,” the miller’s 
wife dared to say, weeping, to her lord. Sure he 
is an innocent lad and a faithful, and would never 
dream of any such wickedness, however sore his 
heart might be.” 

But Baas Cogez, being an obstinate man, having 
once said a thing, held to it doggedly, though in his 
innermost soul he knew well the injustice that he 
was committing. 

Meanwhile, endured the injury done 

against him with a certain proud patience that dis- 
dained to complain : he only gave way a little when 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


46 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


he was quite alone with Patrasche. Besides, he 
thought, If mj picture should win! They will 
be sorry then, perhaps/’ 

Still, to a boy not quite sixteen, and who had 
5 dwelt in one little world all his short life, and in his 
childhood had been caressed and applauded on all 
sides, it was a hard trial to have the whole of that 
little world turn against him for naught. Espe- 
cially hard in that bleak, snow-bound, famine- 
10 stricken winter-time, when the only light and 
warmth there could be found abode beside the vil- 
lage hearths and in the kindly greetings of neigh- 
bors. In' the winter time all drew near to each 
other, all to all, except to I^ello and Patrasche, with 
15 whom none now would have anything to do, and 
who were left to fare as they might with the old 
paralyzed, bedridden man in the little cabin, whose 
fire was often cold, and whose board was often with- 
out bread, for there was a buyer from Antwerp who 
20 had taken to drive his mule in of a day for the milk 
of the various dairies, and there were only three or 
four of the people who had refused his terms of 
purchase and remained faithful to the little green 
cart. So that the burden which Patrasche drew had 
25 become very light, and the centime pieces in Hel- 
lo’s pouch had become, alas! very small likewise. 

25. Centime pieces. French copper coins worth less than one-fifth of 
a cent. 


A DOG OF FLANDEES 47 

The dog would stop, as usual, at all the familiar 
gates, which were now closed to him, and look up 
at them with wistful, mute appeal; and it cost the 
neighbors a pang to shut their doors and their 
hearts, and let Patrasche draw his cart on again, 
empty. ISTevertheless, they did it, for they desired 
to please Baas Cogez. 

ISToel drew close at hand. 

The weather was very wild and cold. The snow 
was six feet deep, and the ice was firm enough to 
bear oxen and men upon it everywhere. At this 
season the little village was always gay and cheer- 
ful. At the poorest dwelling there were possets 
and cakes, joking and dancing. The merry Flem- 
ish bells jingled everywhere on the horses; every- 
where within doors some well-filled soup pot sang 
and smoked over the stove; and everywhere over 
the snow without . laughing maidens pattered in 
bright kerchiefs and stout kirtles, going to and 
from the Mass. Only in the little hut it was very 
dark and very cold. 

iJ^ello and Patrasche were left utterly alone, for 
one night, in the week before the Christmas Day, 
Death entered there, and took away from life for- 
ever old Jehan Daas, who had never known of life 
aught save its poverty and its pains. He had long 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


13. Possets. Drinks made of hot milk curdled with wine. 
19. Kirtles. Skirts. 


48 


A DOG OP FLANDEES 


been half dead, incapable of any movement except 
a feeble gesture, and powerless for anything beyond 
a gentle word; and yet his loss fell on them both 
with a great horror in it: they mourned him pas- 
5 sionately. He had passed away from them in his 
sleep, and when in the gray dawn they learned their 
bereavement, unutterable solitude and desolation 
seemed to close around them. He had long been 
only a poor, feeble, paralyzed old man, who could 
10 not raise a hand in their defense, but he had loved 
them well : his smile had always welcomed their re- 
turn. They mourned for him unceasingly, refus- 
ing to be comforted, as in the white winter day 
they followed the deal shell that held his body to 
15 the nameless grave by the little church. They 
were his only mourners, these two whom he had 
left friendless upon earth — the young boy and the 
old dog. 

Surely; he will relent now and let the poor lad 
20 come hither? thought the miller’s wife, glancing 
at her husband where he smoked by the hearth. 

Baas Cogez knew her thought, but he hardened 
his heart, and would not unbar his door as the little, 
humble funeral went by. The boy is a beggar,” 
25 he said to himself : he shall not be about 
Alois.” 

The woman dared not say anything aloud, but 
when the grave was closed and the mourners had 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


49 


gone, she put a wreath of immortelles into Alois’ 
hands and bade her go and lay it reverently on 
the dark unmarked mound where the snow was 
displaced. 

Nello and Patrasche went home with broken 
hearts. But even of that poor, melancholy, cheer- 
less home they were denied the consolation. There 
was a month’s rental overdue for the little place, 
and when E’ello had paid the last sad service to 
the dead he had not a coin left. He went and 
begged grace of the owner of the hut, a cobbler 
who went every Sunday night to drink his pint of 
wine and smoke with Baas Cogez. The cobbler 
would grant no mercy. He was a harsh, miserly 
man, and loved money. He claimed in default of 
his rent every stick and stone, every pot and pan, 
in the hut, and bade Hello and Patrasche to be out 
of it on the morrow. 

How, the cabin was lowly enough, and in some 
sense miserable enough, and yet their hearts clove 
to it with a great affection. They had been so 
happy there, and in the summer, with its clamber- 
ing vine and its flowering beans, it was so pretty 
^nd bright in the midst of the sun-lighted fields! 
Their life in it had been full of labor and privation. 


1. Immortelles. Flowers which retain their form and color a long 
time and so are put on graves as emblems of immortality. 

15. In default of. Owing to lack of. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


50 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


and yet they had been so well contei^t, so gay of 
heart, running together to meet the old man’s 
never-failing smile of welcome! 

All night long the boy and the dog sat by the 
5 fireless hearth in the darkness, drawn close together 
for warmth and sorrow. Their bodies were in- 
sensible to the cold, but their hearts seemed frozen 
in them. 

AVhen the moAing broke over the white chill 
10 earth it was the morning of Christmas Eve. With 
a shudder, 'NeWo clasped close to him his only 
friend, while his tears fell hot and fast on the dog’s 
frank forehead. “ Let us go, Patrasche — dear, 
dear Patrasche,” he murmured. We will not 
15 wait to be kicked out: let us go.” 

Patrasche had no will but his, and they went 
sadly, side by side, out from the little home which 
was so dear to them, and in which every humble, 
homely thing was to them precious and beloved. 
20 Patrasche drooped his head wearily as he passed 
by his own green cart : it was no longer his — ^it had 
to go with the rest in the dues of debt, and his brass 
harness lay idle and glittering on the snow. The 
dog could have lain down beside it and died for 
25 very heartsickness as he went, but whilst the lad 
lived and needed him Patrasche would not yield 
and give way. 

They took the old accustomed road into Ant- 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


51 


werp. The dav was yet scarce more than dawned, 
most of the shutters were still closed, but some of 
the villagers were about. They took no notice 
whilst the dog and the boy passed by them. At 
one door I^ello paused and looked wistfully within: 
his grandfather had done many a kindly turn in 
neighbor’s service to the people who dwelt there. 

Would you give Patrasche a crust? ” he said 
timidly. He is old, and he has had nothing since 
last forenoon.” 

The woman shut the door hastily, murmuring 
some vague saying that wheat and rye were very 
dear that season. The boy and the dog went on 
again wearily: they asked no more. 

By slow and painful ways they reached Antwerp 
as the chimes tolled ten. 

If I had anything about me I could sell to get 
him bread! ” thought I^ello, but he had nothing 
except the wisp of linen and serge that covered him, 
and his pair of wooden shoes. 

Patrasche understood, and nestled his nose into 
the lad’s hand, as though to pray him not to be dis- 
quieted for any woe or want of his. 

The winner of the drawing prize was to be pro- 
claimed at noon, and to the public building where 
he had left his treasure Hello made his way. On 
the steps and in the entrance hall there was a crowd 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


19. Wisp. Scrap. 


52 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


of youths — some of his age, some older, all with 
parents or relatives or friends. His heart was sick 
with fear as he went amongst them, holding Pa- 
trasche close to him. The great bells of the city 
5 clashed out the hour of noon with brazen clamor. 
The doors of the inner hall were opened; the eager, 
panting throng rushed in: it was known that the 
selected picture would be raised above the rest upon 
a wooden dais. 

10 A mist obscured Hello’s sight, his head swam, 
his limbs almost failed him. When his vision 
cleared he saw the drawing raised on high: it was 
not his own ! A slow sonorous voice was proclaim- ' 
ing aloud that victory had been adjudged to 
15 Stephan Kiesslinger, born in the burgh of Ant- 
werp, son of a wharfinger in that town. 

When Hello recovered his consciousness he was 
lying on the stones without, and Patrasche was 
trying with every art he knew to call him back to 
20 life. In the distance a throng of the youths of 
Antwerp were shouting around their successful 
comrade, and escorting him with acclamations to 
his home upon the quay. 

The boy staggered to his feet and drew the dog 
25 into his embrace. It is all over, dear Patrasche,” 
he murmured — all over ! ” 


9. Dais. Platform. 

16. Wharfinger. Wharf owner. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


53 


He rallied himself as best he could, for he was 
weak from fasting, and retraced his steps to the vil- 
lage. Patrasche paced by his side with his head 
drooping and his old strong limbs feeble under him 
from hunger and sorrow. 

The snow was falling fast: a keen hurricane 
blew from the north: it was bitter as death on the 
plains. It took them long to traverse the familiar 
path, and the bells were sounding four of the clock 
as they approached the hamlet. Suddenly Pa- 
trasche paused, arrested by a scent in the snow, 
scratched, whined, and drew out with his teeth a 
small case of brown leather. He held it up to 
Hello in the darkness. Where they were there 
stood a little Calvary, and a lamp burned dully 
under the cross: the boy mechanically turned the 
bag to the light : on it was the name of Baas Cogez, 
and within it were notes for six thousand francs. 

The sight roused the lad a little from his stupor. 
Pie thrust it in his shirt, and stroked Patrasche and 
drew him onward. The dog looked up wistfully 
in his face. 

Hello made straight for the mill-house, and went 
to the house door and struck on its panels. The 
miller^s wife opened it weeping, with little Alois 
clinging close to her skirts. 

Is it thee, thou poor lad? ’’ she asked kindly 
through her tears. Get thee gone ere the Baas 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


54 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


see tliee. We are in sore trouble to-niglit. He 
is out seeking for a power of money that be has let 
fall riding homeward, and in this snow he never 
will find it; and God knows it will go nigh to ruin 
5 us. It is Heaven’s own judgment for the things 
we have done to thee.” 

Hello put the note-case in her hand and signed 
Patrasche within the house. 

Patrasche found the money to-night,” he said 
10 quickly. Tell Baas Cogez so : I think he will not 
deny the dog shelter and food in his old age. Keep 
him from pursuing me, and I pray of you to be 
good to him.” 

Ere either woman or dog knew what he did, he 
15 had stooped and kissed Patrasche : then had closed 
the door hurriedly on him, and had disappeared in 
the gloom of the fast-falling night. 

The woman and the child stood speechless with 
joy and fear: Patrasche vainly spent the fury of his 
20 anguisli against the iron-bound oak of the barred 
house door. They did not dare unbar the door and 
let him forth : they tried all that they knew how to 
solace him. They brought him sweet cakes and 
juicy meats; they tempted him with the best they 
25 had; they tried to lure him to abide by the warmth 
of the hearth; but it was of no avail. Patrasche 


2 . A power of money. Much money. 

4. Go nigh to ruin us. Almost ruin us. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


55 


refused to be comforted or to stir from the barred 
portal. 

It was six at night when, from an opposite en- 
trance, the miller at last came, jaded and broken, 
into his wife’s presence. It is lost forever,” he 
said, with an ashen cheek and a quiver in his stern 
voice. We have looked with lanterns every- 
where: it is gone — the little maiden’s portion and 
all!” 

His wife put the money into his hold, and told 
him how it had come back to her. The strong man 
sank trembling into a seat and covered his face with 
his hands, ashamed and almost afraid. 

I have been cruel to the lad,” he muttered at 
length: I deserved not to have good at his hands.” 

Little Alois, taking courage, crept close to her 
father and nestled against him her curly fair head. 

Hello may come here again, father? ” she 
whispered. He may come to-morrow as he used 
to do?” 

The miller pressed her in his arms : his hard sun- 
burned face was very pale and his mouth trembled. 

Surely, surely,” he answered his child. He 
shall bide here on Christmas Day, and any other 
day he will. In my greed I sinned, and the Lord 
chastened me gently : God helping me, I will make 
amends to the boy — I will make amends.” 

Little Alois kissed him in gratitude and joy, 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


56 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


then slid from his knees and ran to where the dog 
kept watch by the door. 

And to-night I may feast Patrasche?^’ she 
cried in a child’s thoughtless glee. 

6 Her father bent his head gravely : Ay, ay ; let 
the dog have the best ” ; for the stern old man was 
moved and shaken to his heart’s depths. 

It was Christmas Eve, and the mill-house was 
filled with oak logs and squares of turf, with cream 
10 and honey, with meat and bread, and the rafters 
were hung with wreaths of evergreen, and the Cal- 
vary and the cuckoo clock looked out from a red 
mass of holly. There were little paper lanterns, 
too, for Alois, and toys of various fashions, and 
15 sweetmeats in bright-pictured papers. There were 
light and warmth and abundance everywhere, and 
in it the child would fain have made the dog a 
guest honored and feasted. 

But Patrasche would neither lie in the warmth 
20 nor share in the cheer. Famished he was and very 
cold, but without Hello he would partake neither 
of comfort nor food. Against all temptation he 
was proof, and close against the door he leaned al- 
ways, watching only for a means of escape. 

25 He wants the lad,” said Baas Cogez. Good 
dog! good dog! I will go over to the lad the first 
thing at day-dawn.” 

For no one but Patrasche knew that Hello had 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


57 


left the hut, and no one but Patrasche divined that 
^^ello had left him there, to face starvation and 
misery alone. 

Phe mill kitchen was very warm; great logs 
crackled and flamed on the hearth; neighbors came 5 
in for a glass of wine and a slice of the fat goose 
baking for supper. Alois, gleeful and sure of her 
playmate back on the morrow, bounded and sang, 
and tossed back her yellow hair. Baas Cogez, in 
the fullness of his heart, smiled on her through 10 
moistened eyes, and spoke of the way in which he 
would befriend her favorite companion; the house- 
mother sat with calm contented face at the spin- 
ning-wheel; the cuckoo in the clock chirped mirth- 
ful hours. Amidst it all Patrasche was bidden 15 
with a thousand words of welcome to tarry there, a 
cherished guest, and he would not. ITeither peace 
nor plenty could allure him where hTello was not. 

When the supper smoked on the board, and the 
voices were loudest and gladdest, Patrasche, watch- 20 
ing always an occasion, glided out when the door 
Avas unlatched by a careless newcomer, and as 
swiftly as his weak and tired limbs would bear him 
sped over the snow in the bitter, black night. He 
had only one thought — to follow Hello. He re- 25 
membered a bygone time, when an old man and 
a little child had found him sick unto death in the 
wayside ditch. 


58 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


Snow had fallen freshly all the evening long; it 
was now nearly ten; the trail of the boy’s foot- 
steps was almost obliterated. It took Patrasche 
long and arduous labor to discover any scent by 
5 which to guide him in pursuit. When at last he 
found it, it was lost again quickly, and lost and re- 
covered, and again lost and again recovered, a hun- 
dred times, and more. 

The night was very wild. The lamps under the 
10 wayside crosses were blown out; the roads were 
sheets of ice; the impenetrable darkness hid every 
trace of habitations; there was no living thing 
abroad. All the cattle were housed, and in all the 
huts and homesteads men and women rejoiced and 
15 feasted. There was only Patrasche out in the cruel 
cold — old and famished and full of pain, but with 
the strength and the patience of a great love to 
sustain him in his search. 

The trail of Hello’s steps, faint and obscure as 
20 it was under the new snow, went straightly along 
the accustomed tracks into Antwerp. It was past 
midnight when Patrasche traced it over the bound- 
aries of the town and into the narrow, tortuous, 
gloomy streets. It was all quite dark in the town. 
25 How and then some light gleamed ruddily through 
the crevices of house shutters, or some group went 
homeward with lanterns, chanting drinking songs, 


83. Tortuous, Crooked. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


59 


The streets were all white with ice: the high walls 
and the roofs loomed black against them. There 
was scarce a sound save the riot of the winds down 
the passages as they tossed the creaking signs and 
shook the tall lamp irons. 

So many passers-by had trodden through and 
through the snow, so many divers paths had crossed 
and recrossed each other, that the dog had a hard 
task to retain any hold on the track he followed. 
But he kept on his way, though the cold pierced 
him to the bone, and the jagged ice cut his feet, and 
the hunger in his body gnawed like a rat’s teeth. 
But he kept on his way — a poor gaunt, shivering, 
drooping thing in the frozen darkness, that no one 
pitied as he went — and by long patience traced the 
steps he loved into the very heart of the burgh and 
up to the steps of the great cathedral. 

The portals of the cathedral were unclosed after 
the midnight Mass. Some heedlessness in the cus- 
todians, too eager to go home and feast or sleep, 
or too drowsy to know whether they turned the 
keys aright, had left one of the doors unlocked. 
By that accident the footfalls Patrasche sought had 
passed through into the building, leaving the white 
marks of snow upon the dark stone floor. By that 
slender white thread, frozen as it fell, he was guided 
through the intense silence, through the immensity 
of the vaulted space — guided straight to the gates 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


60 


A DOG OP FLANDERS 


of the chancel, and stretched there upon the stones, 
he found Nello. He crept up noiselessly, and 
touched the face of the boy. Didst thou dream 
that I should be faithless and forsake thee? I — a 
5 dog? ’’ said that mute caress. 

The lad raised himself with a low cry and clasped 
him close. 

Let us lie down and die together,” he mur- 
mured. Men have no need of us, and we are all 
10 alone.” 

In answer, Patrasche crept closer yet, and laid 
his head upon the young boy’s breast. The great 
tears stood in his brown sad eyes: not for himself 
— for himself he was happy. 

15 They lay close together in the piercing cold. 
The blasts that blew over the Flemish dykes from 
the northern seas were like waves of ice, which 
froze every living thing they touched. The in- 
terior of the immense vault of stone in which they 
20 were was even more bitterly chill than the snow- 
covered plains wdthout. How and then a bat 
moved in the shadows — now and then a gleam of 
light came to the ranks of carven figures. Under 
the Rubens they lay together, quite still, and 
25 soothed almost into a dreaming slumber by the 
numbing narcotic of the cold. Together they 
dreamed of the old glad days when they had chased 


16. Dykes, Ditches. 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 61 

each other through the flowering grasses of the 
summer meadows, or sat hidden in the tall bul- 
rushes by the water^s side, watching the boats go 
seaward in the sun. 

1^0 anger had ever separated them; no cloud had 
ever come between them; no roughness on the one 
side, no faithlessness on the other, had ever ob- 
scured their perfect love and trust. All through 
their short lives they had done their duty as it had 
come to them, and had been happy in the mere 
sense of living, and had begrudged nothing to any 
man or . beast, and had been quite content because 
quite innocent. And in the faintness of famine and 
of the frozen blood that, stole dully and slowly 
through their veins, it was of the days they had 
spent together that they dreamed, lying there in 
the long watches of the night of ^N’oel. 

Suddenly through the darkness a great white 
radiance streamed through the vastness of the 
aisles ; the moon, that was at her height, had broken 
through the clouds; the snow had ceased to fall; 
the light reflected from the snow without was clear 
as the light of dawn. It fell through the arches 
full upon the two pictures above, from which the 
boy on his entrance had flung back the veil: the 
Elevation ’’ and the “ Descent from the Cross ’’ 
were for one instant visible as by day. 

Hello rose to his feet and stretched his arms to 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


62 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


them : the tears of a passionate ecstasy glistened on 
the paleness of his face. 

‘‘I have seen them at last!” he cried aloud. 

O God, it is enough ! ” 

5 His limbs failed under him, and he sank upon 
his knees, still gazing upward at the majesty that 
he adored. For a few brief moments the light 
illumined the divine visions that had been denied 
to him so long — light, clear, and sweet, and 
10 strong as though it streamed from the throne 
of Heaven. 

Then suddenly it passed away: once more a 
great darkness covered the face of Christ. 

The arms of the boy drew close again the body 
15 of the dog. 

We shall see His face — there he murmured; 

and He will not part us, I think; He will have 
mercy.” 

lY 

On the morrow, by the chancel of the cathedral, 
20 the people of Antwerp found them both. They 
were both dead: the cold of the night had frozen 
into stillness alike the young life and the old. 
AVhen the Christmas morning broke and the 
priests came to the temple, they saw them lying 
25 thus on the stones together. Above, the veils- were 
drawn back from the great visions of Rubens, and 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


63 


the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the thorn- 
crowned head of the God. 

As the day grew on there came an old, hard- 
featured man, who wept as women weep. 

I was cruel to the lad,’^ he muttered, and now 5 
I would have made amends — yea, to the half of 
my substance — and he should have been to me as 
a son.^’ 

There came also, as the day grew apace, a painter 
who had fame in the world, and who was liberal of 10 
hand and of spirit. 

I seek one who should have had the prize yes- 
terday had worth won,’^ he said to the people, — 
a boy of rare promise and genius. An old wood- 
cutter on a fallen tree at eventide — that was all his 16 
theme. But there was greatness for the future in 
it. I would fain find him, and take him with me 
and teach him art.” 

And a little child with curling fair hair, sobbing 
bitterly as she clung to her father^s arm, cried 20 
aloud, Oh, ^^ello, come! We have all ready for 
thee. The Christ-child’s hands are full of gifts, 
and the old piper will play for us; and the mother 
says thou shalt stay by the hearth and burn nuts 
with us all the Xoel week long — yes, even to the 25 


25. The Feast of the Kings. Epiphany, a festival celebrated the 
twelfth day after Christmas to commemorate the manifestation of Christ 
by the star which guided the three kings to Bethlehem. 


64 


A DOG OF FLANDERS 


Feast of the Kings! And Patrasche v/ill be so 
happy! Oh, Kello, wake and come! ’’ 

But the young pale face, turned upward to the 
light of the great Kubens with a smile upon its 
5 mouth, answered them all, It is too late.” 

For the sweet, sonorous bells went ringing 
through the frost, and the sunlight shone upon the 
plains of snow, and the populace trooped gay and 
glad through the streets, but Kello and Patrasche 
10 no more asked charity at their hands. All they 
needed now Antwerp gave unbidden. 

All their lives they had been together, and in 
their deaths they were not divided; for when they 
were found the arms of the boy were folded too 
15 closely around the dog to be severed without vio- 
lence, and the people of their little village, contrite 
and ashamed, implored a special grace for them, 
and, making them one grave, laid them to rest there 
side by side — forever. 


English Classic Series— continued. 


63 The Antig'one of Sophocles* 

English Version by Thos. Franck- 
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64 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

(Selected Poems.) 

65 Robert Browning. (Selected 

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67 Scenes from George Eliot’s 

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70 Carlyle’s Essay on Barns. 

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72 Poe’s Raven, and other Poems. 

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>9 Addison’s Cato. 

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16 Early English Ballads. 

17 Skelton, Wyatt, and Snrr^. 

(Select^ Poems.) 

98 Edwin Arnold. (Selected Poems.) 

99 Caxton and Daniel. (Selections.) 

100 Fuller and Hooker. (Selections.) 

101 Marlowe’s Jew of Malta. (Con- 

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102-103 Macaulay’s Essay on Mil- 
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104-105 Macaulay’s Essay on Ad- 
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106 Macaulay’s Essay on Bos- 
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107 Mandeville’s Travels and Wy- 
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108-1 09 Macaulay’s Essay on Fred- 
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110-111 Milton’s Samson Agonis- 
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112-113-114 Franklin’s Autobiog- 
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115-116 Herodotus’s Stories of 
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117 Irving’s Alhambra. 

118 Burke’s Pi'esent Discontents. 

119 Burke’s Speech on Concilia- 
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127 Andersen’s Danish Fairy Tales. 
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131 Words of Abraham Lincoln. 

132 Grimm’s German Fairy Tales* 

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133 

134 

the Wonderful Lamp. 

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137-38 Scott’s Ivanhoe. 

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141-42 Scott’s The Talisman. (Con* 

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143 Gods and Heroes of the North. 
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146 Four Mediaeval Chroniclers. 

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150 Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew. By 
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151 The NUrnberg Stove. ByOuida. 

152 Hayne’s Speech. To which 
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153 Alice’s Adventures in Won- 
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CAaaoLlj. . 

154-155 Defoe’s Journal of the 
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156-157 More’s Utopia. (Con- 

densed.) 


.^sop’s Fables. (Selected.) 
Arabian Nights. Aladdin, 


or 


(Con- 


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168 Hawthorne’s Wonder Book. 
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